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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Vatican City, 1 July 2015 (VIS) –
This morning a press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office
to present the high-level Conference “People and planet first: the imperative
to change course” (Rome, Augustinianum, 2-3 July) organised by the
Pontifical Council “Justice and Peace” and CIDSE, an
international network of Catholic non-governmental development
organisations.

The speakers at the conference were
Cardinal Kodwo Appiah Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council
“Justice and Peace”; Naomi Klein, writer; Ottmar Edenhofer,
co-president of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate
Change (IPCC) and Bernd Nilles, secretary general of Cooperation
Internationale pour le Developpement et la Solidarite (International
Cooperation for Development and Solidarity).

Cardinal Turkson emphasised that the
title of the conference, which focuses on climate change, clearly
indicates the aim to be pursued: “people and planet, not one or the
other, not one at the expense of the other”. He noted that in his
recent Encyclical “Laudato si'”, the Pope proposes an integral
ecology that respects its human and social dimensions, and shows that
climate change is one of the main challenges facing humanity in our
times, also highlighting that the climate is a common good, belonging
to all and meant for all. “Yet the costs of climate change are
being borne by those least responsible for it and least able to adapt
to it – the poor. Overall, climate change is a global problem with
a spectrum of serious implications: environmental, social, economic
and political”. In “Laudato si'”, the Pope also laments the
failure of past global summits on the environment, and launches an
urgent appeal for enforceable international agreements to stop
climate change.

In this respect, as Cardinal Turkson
observes, the COP21 Conference held in Paris from 30 November to 11
December 2015 will be crucial in identifying strong solutions to the
problem of climate change. The Sustainable Development Goals are also
relevant in this context, and coincide in various aspects with the
points made by Pope Francis in his Encyclical. “For example, the
13th proposed goal will express the imperative to take urgent action
to combat climate change and its impacts. Related goals include: make
cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and
sustainable; ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns;
conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
for sustainable development; protect, restore and promote sustainable
use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt
biodiversity loss”.

“These goals, similar to important
points made in 'Laudato si'', await the pledges and the will of the
whole world community during the 70th United Nations General Assembly
beginning in mid-September 2015. Yet the single biggest obstacle to
the imperative to change course is not economic, scientific or even
technological, but rather within our minds and hearts. The same
mindset which stands in the way of making radical decisions to
reverse the trend of global warming also stands in the way of
achieving the goal of eliminating poverty. A more responsible overall
approach is needed to deal with both problems: the reduction of
pollution and the development of poorer countries and regions. …
The political dimension needs to re-establish democratic control over
the economy and finance, that is, over the basic choices made by
human societies. This is the path the entire human family is on, the
one which leads through New York to Paris and beyond”, concluded
the prelate.

Naomi Klein affirmed that what Pope
Francis writes in “Laudato si'” “is not only a teaching for the
Catholic world but for 'every person living on this planet'. And I
can say that as a secular Jewish feminist who was rather surprised to
be invited to the Vatican, it certainly spoke to me”.

“In a world where profit is
consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics
has everything to do with ethics and morality. Because if we agree
that endangering life on earth is a moral crisis, then it is
incumbent on us to act like it. That does not mean gambling the
future on the boom and bust cycles of the market. It means policies
that directly regulate how much carbon can be extracted from the
earth. It means policies that will get us to 100 per cent renewable
energy in two or three decades – not by the end of the century. And
it means allocating common, shared resources – like the atmosphere
– on the basis of justice and equity, not winners-take-all”.

Therefore, “a new kind of climate
movement is fast emerging. It is based on the most courageous truth
expressed in the encyclical: that our current economic system is both
fuelling the climate crisis and actively preventing us from taking
the necessary actions to avert it. A movement based on the knowledge
that if we don’t want runaway climate change, then we need system
change. And because our current system is also fuelling ever widening
inequality, we have a chance, in rising to the climate challenge, to
solve multiple, overlapping crises at once. In short, we can shift to
a more stable climate and fairer economy at the same time”.

“This growing understanding is why
you are seeing some surprising and even unlikely alliances. Like, for
instance, me at the Vatican. Like trade unions, Indigenous, faith and
green groups working more closely together than ever before. Inside
these coalitions, we do not agree on everything. … But we
understand that the stakes are so high, time is so short and the task
is so large that we cannot afford to allow those differences to
divide us. When 400,000 people marched for climate justice in New
York last September, the slogan was 'To change everything, we need
everyone'. Everyone includes political leaders, of course. But having
attended many meetings with social movements about the COP summit in
Paris, I can report this: there is zero tolerance for yet another
failure being dressed up as a success for the cameras. … If the
deal fails to bring about immediate emission reductions while
providing real and substantive support for poor countries, then it
will be declared a failure. As it should be”.

“What we must always remember is that
it’s not too late to veer off the dangerous road we are on, the one
that is leading us towards 4 degrees of warming”, emphasised Naomi
Klein. “Indeed we could still keep warming below 1.5 degrees if we
made it our top collective priority. It would be difficult, to be
sure. As difficult as the rationing and industrial conversions that
were once made in wartime. As ambitious as the anti-poverty and
public works programs launched in the aftermath of the Great
Depression and the Second World War. But difficult is not the same as
impossible. And giving up in the face of a task that could save
countless and lives prevent so much suffering – simply because it
is difficult, costly and requires sacrifice from those of us who can
most afford to make do with less – is not pragmatism. It is
surrender of the most cowardly kind. And there is no cost-benefit
analysis in the world that is capable of justifying it”.